


Life's What You Make It

by TourmalineGreen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Time Blow Jobs, First Times, Frat Parties, Oral Sex, Vomit, drinking at frat parties, slightly tipsy yet consensual fooling around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 01:21:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/pseuds/TourmalineGreen
Summary: He sees her for the first time when he barrels into a frat-house bathroom, the mysteriously-named ‘jungle juice’ he’d consumed currently staging a revolt on his insides as the synth-pop pulses and writhes up through the floorboards from the party downstairs. Alderaan University, Rho-Epsilon-Nu house, first frat party of his college career, and a nineteen-year-old Ben Solo is already wishing he’d stayed home.





	Life's What You Make It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avidvampirehunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avidvampirehunter/gifts), [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest/gifts), [elemie89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elemie89/gifts), [sidsaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidsaid/gifts), [Audrey4ever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audrey4ever/gifts), [ReyloWarrior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyloWarrior/gifts).



> Hi! This is fun! Songs mentioned throughout are 'Life's What You Make It' and 'Chameleon Day' both by Talk Talk. Enjoy some 80s Reylo, inspired by the very silly (and entirely too topical) 80s SNL sketch. Dedicated to the CL GC members, you know who you are. [Edited to add - I have recently changed the title of this one to something more descriptive than just referencing the years in which the story takes place. Apologies for any confusion!)

******1988**

He sees her for the first time when he barrels into a frat-house bathroom, the mysteriously-named ‘jungle juice’ he’d consumed currently staging a revolt on his insides as the synth-pop pulses and writhes up through the floorboards from the party downstairs. Alderaan University, Rho-Epsilon-Nu house, first frat party of his college career, and a nineteen-year-old Ben Solo is already wishing he’d stayed home.

Until her.

Ben pushes the hollow bathroom door a little too hard, and winces as it bangs against the frankly appalling enamel bathtub behind it. Two girls, huddled on the floor in front of the toilet. From one, distinctive retching noises that make the bile in his throat rise; from the other, a sudden and fierce glare, moss-brown eyes set in a pale, perfect face, a murderous expression as she holds the other girl’s hair back from dipping into the bowl.

“Get out,” the moss-eyed girl hisses. “This is all _your_ fault.”

“I—” Ben attempts, but the dark-haired, retching girl makes a low, ominous groan into the bowl, and like a call-and-response, Ben’s stomach echoes the sentiment.

He turns, gripping the edge of the sink, white-knuckled as he bends his six-foot-something height over it. Everything comes back up. The slurry of fruit in the alcohol, the pizza, everything. Ben shuts his watering eyes, too sick to be embarrassed, although he knows that’s coming in due time. He heaves, and, with shaking hands, turns the tap on.

Oh god. This is the worst, the absolute fucking worst.

Slowly, he comes to. When he opens his eyes, the water in the tap is still running, and, mercifully, there’s nothing left to… poke down. Ben cups his hands, washing his face, his mouth, cupping again and drinking the clean, sweet water. He rinses his mouth out again and again, until the taste is less than an echo on the back of his tongue.

He is never, ever drinking again, for the rest of his life.

Slowly, Ben straightens back up.

The two girls are still crouched on the floor. The dark-haired one, slumped onto her friend’s lap, has her eyes closed, a little divot of a frown between her brows. The other one, with the long brown hair and the moss-brown eyes, pets her drunk friend’s hair gently, eyes still downcast.

“I need to get her back to the dorms,” she says, more to herself than to him. Her accent is… different, Ben realizes. Wow, nothing like puking to make your head clear. _She’s British_ , he thinks. It’s a very cute accent. Sexy, even.

He is so, _so_ drunk.

But, having befouled the sink, Ben feels slightly better; he stands even taller. “I’ll walk you home.”

The moss-eyed girl looks up at him, her brows raised. “You?”

“Me,” he says. “I’ll… carry her, if I need to.”

The girl makes a scoffing noise at this, clearly incredulous that, given his recent sickness, he can carry anything larger than a can of soda, but Ben is determined. He starts towards the pair of them, and the moss-eyed girl lifts her hand and says, “Alright, alright.”

Between the two of them, they get the passed-out, dark-haired girl into Ben’s arms.

The girl is heavier than she looks, not because she’s tall or heavy, but more because he’s never done this before. Keeping balanced is a bit of a tenuous situation at moments. But somehow, through some mysterious, chivalric power, or perhaps just the power of jungle juice, Ben makes it down the stairs and out the front door.

The night air is crisp and cool. It smells like fall out here, and a little bit like puke, from the drunk girl’s clothing.

“Which way?” Ben asks, turning to the moss-eyed girl for guidance. She looks up at him, leans a little more on his arm than she clearly intends to, and points over to her right.

“About… four blocks, I think.”

“Okay,” Ben says, much more decisively than he feels. “Okay.”

* * *

**2018**

“Benjamin Solo?”

“Yes?”

He looks up from his desk, shocked at first, then smirking, at the sight of a beautiful blonde in a trim, navy pantsuit and white blouse, flashing a badge at him as she stands in the doorway of his executive suite.

It’s two weeks before his 50th birthday, and Ben Solo is not in the mood to be pranked. But, damn, a strip-o-gram at work? This is a new low, even for Hux.

“Look, sweetheart,” he says, leaning back in his office chair and smirking at her. “I’ve got a lot on my plate. And whatever the guys said, it’s—”

“Mr. Solo, I’m Agent Connix with the FBI, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me for questioning.”

Ben laughs outright at this, leaning to the side a little, trying to catch a glimpse of Hux or Mitaka, someone who’s responsible for this, someone who’s sitting outside, having a good laugh at Ben’s expense.

“Ha ha,” he says. “Very funny. Why don’t you just skip to the part where you show me your pretty little tits.”

Two seconds later, Ben’s face-down on his expensive wenge desk, arms practically wrenched out of their sockets, as Agent Connix clips the handcuffs tightly on his straining wrists.

Turns out neither the gun nor the taser are props.

Perhaps he has made something akin to a mistake.

* * *

**1988**

Their dorm is a dozen or so blocks away from the frat house. Ben stops counting; it’s definitely more than four, but he doesn’t mind.

All things considered, it’s not what he signed up for, coming to a frat party. The friend he’d come with tonight had disappeared, hopefully to better results than Ben had found. Honestly, he’d hoped to get drunk, and get laid, and get high, preferably in any order. Instead, he’s carrying a drunk girl home, and being used as a crutch by the other. The night air is cold, refreshing, and keeps him from giving in to the growls of his empty stomach and the residual dizziness from the alcohol that manage to soak in before it so violently left the premises.

But they make it.

Ben brings the passed-out girl up the stairs and, following the one that’s still on her feet, enters a tidy dorm room on a nearly-silent hall. This is one of the all-girl, honors dorms, Ben realizes; his moss-eyed girl, who really isn’t _his_ moss-eyed girl, is an honors student.

And the drunk girl probably is, too.

“Through here,” the moss-eyed girl says, and Ben follows. The dorm is pretty small, with a living area on one side of the entryway and an equally-sized bedroom area to the other. The bunk-beds in the second room are angled into the corner, heads facing out, to give maximum headroom for the shelving along one of the walls. He curses softly, stubbing his toe on a box, but manages to get the girl down onto the lower bunk.

The other girl crouches down to pat her roommate’s hair out of her face, check her breathing.

Ben slips out the door, and stands, awkwardly, in the living room. There’s a little kitchenette—just a hot plate and a small fridge—as well as a couch and mismatched chair.

Should he leave? Maybe he should leave.

He doesn’t leave.

Instead, her goes over to the kitchenette area, seeing two chipped, mismatched mugs hanging from hooks underneath the upper cupboard, and an electric kettle. Trying to be useful, and desperate for something in his stomach, Ben fills and starts it and puts a tea bag each in two of the mugs. He waits, and pours it, uncertain how to tell whether the water is hot enough.

After a few minutes, the girl comes back out of the bedroom. Ben notices immediately that she’s changed out of her dirty clothes, and is now wearing white knee socks with red stripes at the top, a sweatshirt, and either very tiny pajama shorts or... none whatsoever.

He is _definitely_ not leaving.

“She’s asleep,” the girl says. She catches sight of the mug of tea on the counter, picking it up with two hands, cradling it gratefully. “Thanks.”

The tea is more warm than hot, barely brewed, but Ben takes a sip of it anyway, grateful for anything in his mouth that doesn’t taste like alcoholic fruit. His belly growls again, loudly.

The girl eyes him. “You hungry? We have some leftovers.”

“Sure.”

The girl sets her tea down on the counter again, and shuffles over to the kitchen, pulling open the fridge and withdrawing the better part of a gigantic party sub. The kind that is pre-sliced into six-inch portions, laden with deli meat and cheese and some wilting iceberg lettuce.

She smiles at him, and places the whole thing, about two feet of it, on the counter. “Help yourself.”

“Jesus,” Ben mutters, picking up a slice. “Thanks.”

“My roommate works for campus catering,” she says, by way of an explanation. “Massive quantities of leftovers are just one of the perks.”

Ben nods, tearing a massive bite out of the sandwich. The girl watches him eat for a moment longer, then grabs her own slice and taking it over to the rickety couch in the living area. She sits down delicately, her stocking feet pulled up underneath her massive sweatshirt, just a bare hint of knee exposed, but it’s enough.

Ben can’t stop glancing down at it.

Eventually, he finishes off his second sandwich section, picks up a third, and joins her on the couch. On the other end of the couch, leaving more than a foot of space between them.

“Why did you say this was all my fault?”

“I thought you were one of them,” the girl says. “One of the frat guys.”

Ben laughs softly, and shakes his head. “No. I’d been thinking of pledging there, but… I don’t know if I’m really Rho-Epsilon-Nu material.”

“No,” she agrees, tilting her head to the side, surveying him. “Probably not. You wouldn’t have carried Connie home, if you were.”

Ben doesn’t know what to say to that.

All of the guys he’d met so far at Rho-Epsilon-Nu were the kind of impossibly cool guys he’d always wanted to be. The suave guys, with nice cars and good clothes, who knew what to say to girls, who weren’t embarassing virgins, like he was.

Ben glances down to the girl’s bare knee again. He eats the sandwich.

“I’m Rey, by the way,” she says softly.

Ben chews and swallows his bite, as hastily as seems safe.

“Ben,” he says.

* * *

**2018**

“But hey, that was the eighties,” Ben says, his hands behind his head.

He pauses, then, and looks around at the two FBI agents. They are less amused by his anecdotes. Ben leans forward, the handcuffs—completely unnecessary—clink on the wooden table.

“So, how serious are the charges?”

“And you’re telling me that you have absolutely no memory of the party that took place on the night of October fourth, nineteen-eighty-six, at the Rho-Epsilon-Nu fraternity house, on campus, at Alderaan University,” the FBI agent asks him, bypassing his question.

“No,” Ben says, growing more aggravated by this charade as each second passes. “No, I _don’t_ have any recollection of that night.”

“Even though we have witnesses that place you at the party that night?”

“Like I said, I know I went to some college parties, and yes, I did eventually pledge at Rho-Epsilon-Nu, but that night, specifically? I don’t remember it.”

Ben Solo looks up at the FBI interviewer to his right, then at the agent to his left. Pissed, right now, is an understatement. He’s been humiliated—paraded out, in cuffs, in front of his employees, crammed into the back of a car, his rights read… And now, sitting at a bare desk, in a tiny, dark, interrogation room, with an obvious two-way mirror on the opposite wall, through which who the hell knows is watching. And still, no charges, not even a hint of what this is about. This is unbelievable.

“Is it possible that you were too intoxicated to recall the details?” the interviewer presses. “Did you often get blackout drunk at college parties?”

“It’s—no, I didn’t often… I mean, we drank, we all did,” Ben stumbles over his words; the cuffs clink on his wrists as he moves. “It was college.”

“Do you remember a girl by the name of Constance Ann Zuvio?” the interviewer says, withdrawing a black-and-white photo of a dark-haired girl, smiling up at him with teased bangs higher than his career expectations. “Went by the name of Connie?”

Ben looks at the photo, and shakes his head. “No. I don’t know her.”

“And what about this girl, Aurelia Jean Kenobi, went by Rey?”

The interviewer produces another photo. This time, there’s something almost familiar in the glint of the girl’s eyes. This photo isn’t a proper portrait, but a candid snap. In it, she’s laughing a little, a headband in her wavy tresses, teeth white and even, blurred a little in the motion of the laughter.

Ben pauses.

“No,” he says. “I don’t think I know her either.”

“You don’t think you know her, or you don’t—”

“I don’t remember her,” Ben says, fighting to keep his anger in check. “I… will you please tell me what the _fuck_ is going on?”

The interviewer sighs.

He doesn’t move the photos from the table. The two girls sit there, staring up at him, like an accusation. Like he’s casting a play, the play of his life, and he can’t remember the plot.

* * *

**1988**

Rey’s mouth tastes like black tea, and her breasts are small and perfect in his hands, and they’re somewhere in that glorious space between vertical and horizontal on her shitty, old couch. Ben tastes her, wishing that they were on a bed rather than a five-foot sofa that is at least a foot too short for him to actually stretch out on, but willing and eager to take what the universe has given him.

At some point, she’d gotten up to check on Connie, who was still asleep in her bedroom. Rey had put on an album, something with butterflies on the cover, playing it low, because the alternative was sitting in awkward, sandwich-infused silence. Then, she’d made him a second cup of proper, stronger black tea. At no point in the evening—how late is it? Is it morning already? Ben doesn’t care—had she asked him to go. In fact, she seemed to be inventing reasons for him to stay.

And she must not have any complaints about what he tastes like, because her tongue is meeting his, taste for taste, and she’s making little, throaty, needy moans like she wants even more.

Ben surfaces with a breathy: “Fuck.” Removes his left hand from her bare breast only because he has to do something to push his shaggy hair out of his face. He wants to see her.  

 _Baby, life's what you make it_ _  
_ _Can't escape it_

“Is this okay?” Rey says, as breathless as he feels. Her sweatshirt is all rucked up, exposing her pale, flat belly, the edge of her sunshine-yellow underwear. Ben runs his thumb over the tiny coral bow at the waistband, and can barely compose enough coherent words to tell her how he feels.

_It’s perfect. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. You’re—_

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. Whatever you want…”

Rey grins, and pulls him back in for another kiss.

 _Baby, don't try to shade it_ _  
_ _Beauty is naked_

“Can I… can I put my mouth on your…” Ben can hardly say the words. He’s nineteen, for Christ’s sake, not fourteen; he’s seen breasts before. Boobs, tits, knockers. Saw plenty of them in the stash of his dad’s nudie mags that he found once while looking for something in the garage. Granted, those nudie mags were from a decade ago, with full bush and overripe breasts that told him entirely too much about his father’s preferences.

Rey’s breasts are…

They’re _here_ , for one thing. Small and neat, high on her chest, fucking perfect, amazing, breasts. They’re warm and soft; he’s had his hands on them for a while now and he’d sincerely like to investigate further.

“Please?”

Rey nods, and bites her bottom lip.

Ben dives in. And the noise she makes when his lips close around her peach-pink areola—

Her hands tangle in his hair, and she whimpers, as shocked by this, it seems, as he is.

Ben closes his eyes, and learns the music of her pleasure.

* * *

**2018**

They let him go after what seems like hours.

Take the cuffs off, while he glares and and mutters curses at them—under his breath, of course, because this is the FBI, and he may be a cocky asshole but he’s not an idiot.

On the way out of the interrogation room, someone hands him his jacket.

Ben finds his phone in the pocket. It’s unlocked, and his code is no longer necessary.

Right. FBI.

Ben leaves the station.

He doesn’t want to go back into work. The thought of facing everyone after that little shitshow…

He heads to the nearest bar.

_Did you often get blackout drunk at college parties?_

The FBI agent’s accusatory words still ring in his ears, and Ben mutters a low curse, aimed at no one, as he stomps off to the bar. A small, older woman in a thick winter coat glares at him as he curses, tugging her cart to the other side of the sidewalk, and Ben feels his ears heat up.

Fuck it. He definitely did get blackout drunk at a few college parties. That was just the way things were. And isn’t that the point of getting blackout drunk, the not-remembering? Ben’s scowl deepens.

He’s definitely going to go get blackout drunk now. Or as close to it as he can get, given the fact that he isn’t in his twenties anymore. Ben finds a bar—The Sword and Sandal—and goes inside. He sidles up to the bar, orders a Manhattan, and waits with restless energy for the drink to arrive.

Today sucks.

* * *

**1988**

He’s never tasted a woman before. Never had the pure, unbridled joy of having his head between a woman’s slim legs, splitting her cunt wide with his eager tongue, devouring her.

Ben’s maybe possibly in love with her, just for letting him do this. It’s great. Better than great. He’d happily eat her pussy for the rest of his natural life.

“A little—little slower, like—like that, fuck, Ben—” Her hands tangle in his hair, tugging and directing, giving instruction.

He obeys. God, he’s never been so fucking hard in his entire life. The couch is incredibly uncomfortable, sagging and scratchy on the bare skin of his own belly, where his shirt has been pushed up, but Ben isn’t going to move for anything. It’s sloppy, and wet, and her hips keep bucking up into his mouth, and he has no idea what to do with his hands except for hold her hips like she’s a lifeboat and he’s a drowning man. He wants to drown in her.

Her words deteriorate into a series of breathy, panting moans.

“Fingers, put your—in me, please—”

He shifts on the couch, belly pressed flat to the cushions, and as slicks a fingers inside of her grasping, tight heat, Ben groans, too; his cock grinds against the inside of his jeans. At this rate, he’s going to come before she does.

“Don’t stop, don’t—”

He lays his mouth back over her pussy, and gets back to work.

* * *

**2018**

Ben scowls at the drink when the hipster-looking bartender sets it down on the tiny, square napkin. Fuck this noise.

“Excuse me?” he says. “ _This_ isn’t a Manhattan.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s our house-infused—”

“I don’t give a fuck what your house-infused anything is,” Ben snarls. “I want a fucking Manhattan. Rye, vermouth, bitters.”

“Jesus, dude,” the bartender says, his palms up. “No worries. I’ll re-make it.”

Ben doesn’t dignify that with a response. He simply glares at the bartender, with his full-sleeved tattoos and rolled-up chambray shirt and his fucking undercut manbun… In ten years’ time, this, too, will look just as ridiculous as whatever Ben wore at his age. Hypercolor sweatshirts and… acid-wash denim.

Those fucking photos, though.

The two girls… Ben closes his eyes, wincing a little as he presses the heels of his palms into each eye socket. They hadn’t seemed familiar, in the moment, but… things from that era were hazy, to say the least.

Before university, Ben hadn’t really been a drinker. He’d stolen a few swigs from his father’s liquor cabinet, once or twice, and and then that first party…

Shit.

He does remember it.

Just bits, flashes.

The bartender sets the correct drink back down, and Ben is too lost in thought to thank him for it.

The party…

“Hello, Ben,” a woman beside him says—her crisp, English accent merging with his memories, dragging him forcibly back into awareness.

Ben looks over.

“It’s _you_ ,” he says.

* * *

**1988**

“Please tell me you have a condom with you,” Rey pants, with her legs still spread on the couch, her chest still rising and falling. “I need you—”

“I… I don’t…”

“Shit.” Rey closes her legs, and sits up a little. Her sweatshirt falls down, covering her breasts; Ben feels like a kid who’s just been told someone’s thrown out his birthday cake, when he’s only had a taste.

“I don’t either,” she finishes, looking over at him.

Nothing in his entire life has made Ben feel worse than the expression on her face. It looks horny, murderous, desperate, woozy, needy. He licks his lips, and his dick gets about 48% harder, just from the taste of her. Ben gets off the couch, giving her room so she can sit up further. He crouches on the floor, watching her.

“Does your… your friend, your roommate—”

Rey shakes her head. “Connie? No. Her parents would kill her.”

“My parents would probably kill me, too,” Ben grumbles. “I should’ve been…”

“It’s okay,” Rey says. “There’s still things we can do.”

On her speakers, the upbeat music has given way to plaintive vocals, a moody piano. Ben feels his heart racing, blood pounding in his ears. What blood is left, anyway, since most of it seems to be going to his dick.

 _Breathe on me_  
_Eclipse my mind_  
_It's in some kind of disarray_

“Oh,” Ben says. And then, when she’s tugged his hand and pushed him back onto the couch, trading places at him, crouching between his legs with a wicked grin on her beautiful face, he says again: “ _Oh._ ”

* * *

**2018**

Ben turns, and he sees her—for the first time in—

“Thirty years,” she says, almost shyly. “Can you believe it?”

Dumbstruck, Ben shakes his head. He takes her in, the brunette seated on the barstool to his left, just as slim and athletic as she was all those years ago. His moss-eyed girl. Never _his_ , and—not a girl any longer, but a woman. She’s got to be his age now, of course; in her emerald-green sheath dress, with pearls in her ears and sweep of bronze over her lashes, she looks classy, sophisticated, a contrast to the last time he saw her. Because it’s definitely her. A bangle slides on her slim wrist. No ring on her finger. An important detail his mind forces him to notice, like a driver on the freeway becoming aware of an ambulance siren. He notices.

Rey smiles; the bartender brings her a clear drink with a little cocktail straw in it, and a twist of lime. She takes it, and nods a polite thank you at him, while Ben just keeps… staring at her.

“Why are you here?” he says—and then, amending his foolish, poorly-composed outburst, he straightens up a little. “I mean, how did you… what’s going on?”

Rey sighs, and tosses back her long, neatly-waved hair with an impatient gesture. “Constance Zuvio—Connie, my roommate… apparently running for public office with skeletons in your closet is a great way to draw the attention of your Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“They brought me in in cuffs,” Ben says, tightly.

“I cleared you,” she replies. “I told them you were… that we were…”

This composed, beautiful, elegant woman… she blushes as her words trail off.

Ben just stares at her. And Rey looks up.

Her eyes narrow slightly. “Do you remember?”

Yeah, he does. He does _now._

“Yes,” Ben says softly. “I remember.”

Rey’s gentle smile is like sunlight, emerging from behind a cloud. God, she’s gorgeous. She was stunning then, so eager and open and playful. Maybe some of that had been the alcohol, but… most of it is just her. Then Ben realizes that he’s staring, and he smiles, and looks down at his drink.

He remembers.

His body remembers her, too.

Ben takes a drink.

“I always wondered what you’d end up as,” Rey says lightly. “I guessed you’d be an English professor, a lawyer, maybe.”

“I work in finance,” Ben says, looking back up at her. “But I did consider teaching. For about… ten minutes.”

She tilts her head, curious. “What happened?”

“With the teaching? Or life in general?” Ben asks, wryly.

She gives him an elegant shrug. “Pick one.”

He sighs.

“I… got a better offer. It opened some doors.”

That’s certainly one way of putting it. Now, he’s not so sure if it was better at all. Not when he stops and takes a genuine look at the man he’s become. The last time she’d seen her, he was idealistic, creative, eager to prove himself. Now, he’s a forty-nine-year-old man with a very nice apartment and the kind of co-workers who definitely aren’t his friends. Shame and regret and longing fills him, the longer he looks into her eyes.

He clears his throat. “And what about you?”

Rey smiles, and stabs at the ice in her drink with her tiny plastic straw. “I work for the government, actually. Department for Education.”

God, her voice still does things to him. Ben sets his drink down.

Her eyes hold his gaze. He swallows, thickly, and leans a little closer, the rest of the bar, the drink, the day utterly forgotten.

* * *

**1988**

“Holy _shit,_ ” Ben mutters, the moment the wet sweetness of her mouth circles the head of his cock. He’s going to come, and she hasn’t even gotten started yet. This is amazing, and embarassing, all in the same, glorious moment. He’s got to keep it together.

With a low growl of frustration, he tilts his head back, intending to stare at the ceiling, or something boring, to keep from blowing his load at the sight of her mouth. Unfortunately, he does so with a bit too much force, knocking his head into the wall.

“Fuck!”

A spike of pain pierces his brain. Ben recoils.

His hips buck up, on instinct, and Rey barely dodges the thrust of his cock down her throat. She tips back on her heels, and Ben, still wincing, looks down at her in horror.

“Are you—?”

“It’s fine,” Rey laughs.

But he tries to stand up anyway, reaching out to help her up. Not because he still wants a blowjob—he definitely _does_ still want a blowjob, but that’s beside the point.

A second later, Ben remembers that his jeans are around his ankles.

And in the process of leaning forward to compensate from the sagging, scratchy couch, he topples over her, catching himself just in time so he doesn’t squash her.

Rey shrieks in surprise. His cock, insistent and so hard he could probably hammer nails with it at this point, brushes up against her slick-wet center, as his hips slot between hers of their own accord.

“Oh,” Rey says, her eyes wide.

She feels it too.

 _Oh shit,_ Ben thinks. _Get up, get up right now—_

“What the hell is going on?”

Ben and Rey look up at the very confused-looking woman, standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

“Connie!” Rey says—a little too loudly, a little too close to Ben’s ear. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“Is he—”

“It’s fine,” Ben says, mortified, scrambling up and off of Rey, and—Christ, she’s laying there on the floor, legs spread, nude from the waist down, her socks scrunched down by her ankles, sweatshirt all messy. “We were just—”

“Are you okay?” Connie says. She’s rubbing her hands through her dark hair, scowling, although whether it’s at Ben, or Rey, or her presumed hangover, he has no clue.

Ben gets to his feet, turning away from them both and tucking his deeply disappointed erection back into his jeans, somehow.

“I should go.”

He hears the words come out of his mouth, and his dick gives a sad, lonely twitch of disagreement. When he turns back, Connie has helped Rey to her feet; Rey looks like she’s going to start laughing at any moment, but Connie looks like she’s going to rip his dick off.

“It’s not‚”

Rey starts to say.

“You _should_ go,” Connie says sharply.

Ben meets Rey’s eyes, and waits. She looks from her roommate to him and back again. Both of them are a little tipsy, both of them got caught up in the moment, and both of them—he thought—wanted this. But he realizes, he’s in an all-girl honors dorm, after hours. He could get suspended for this, his scholarship revoked, his parents—

He nods. “Okay. Um. Good night, I guess.”

“Good night,” Rey says, still a little breathless.

He leaves.

* * *

**2018**

He can’t explain how it happens. There’s a taxi, and a flight of stairs, and an elevator, and somehow she’s in his bedroom, pressed up against the floor-to ceiling glass, bare skin painted like a stained-glass window from the lights of the city below.

This time, he has condoms.

This time, he knows what the hell he’s doing.

It takes a moment of adjustment; he’s tall, and although she isn’t short for a woman, she’s shorter than he is. But then, they figure it out. Ben’s let his life go to shit, but he’s kept himself in shape, his body strong and broad and muscular; punishing workouts to exercise his rage do have a benefit, and the benefit is the way Rey’s pupils dilate when he takes his shirt off.

She’s stunning, too; no longer a lithe, slim college girl, but her coltish legs and high, small breasts and tumble of brown hair feel like home, everywhere Ben touches. And oh, how she lets him touch. The slight softness of age, the tenderness of her, only serves to make all of this feel more real.

They’re definitely making up for lost time. The urgency of their kisses in the elevator, the way he’d lifted her up easily and carried her to his room—but they don’t even have the patience to make it to his bed.

He presses her to the window.

Rey gasps at the contrast between cool glass at her back and Ben’s warm, solid body at her front. A minor adjustment of position—he holds her thighs, cock nudging against her sopping entrance, and she tilts her hips, face flushed. Then, she keens in pleasure as his cock slips into her tight heat.

 _Finally,_ he thinks.

And Rey moans like she agrees, and leans into him, pressing her mouth to his collarbone, nipping him there in impatience.

Ben smiles; he knows an instruction without even needing to hear it.

He moves.

* * *

**1988**

He doesn’t see her on campus again. Once, when he sees Connie, he asks her; she flips him off and tells him that Rey went home.

Ben doesn’t know what ‘home’ is for her. England, he supposes.

It’s just a crush, anyway. It doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t matter.

Ben pledges at Rho-Epsilon-Nu. He makes the right kind of friends, friends who are going places, can score him the coke he starts to crave. His grades tank, then recover; a little application of pressure, in the right places, can do wonders. Influence is everything. Mentorship, critical.

He loses his virginity to a perky brunette named Jennifer. She has long, slim legs and is a member of the swim team. When he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend it’s Rey, save for the noises she makes when she comes. Ben stays quiet, concentrating, compartmentalizing; he doesn’t last long at all. And it makes him feel sick, the way the girl leaves so quickly afterwards. It means nothing to her, just another fun game. Ben immediately regrets it, then spends the next six weeks moping and using his rage to lacquer over his heart.

He gets a job, right out of college. He makes money—obscene amounts of it, through mostly-legal channels. The illegal ones, he doesn’t ask about. He doesn’t talk to his family for years, lets the rage boil up inside of him. He doesn’t need them. Doesn’t need anybody.

Sometimes, in the night, when he takes his cock in his fist and brings himself to a punishing climax, he thinks of that night. The taste of her, on his mouth. The way she’d directed him, whimpered, eager and wet. He thinks of the way she’d been splayed out on the couch for him, or even on the floor. Of what would’ve happened if her fucking roommate hadn’t walked in.

Why had she left?

He doesn’t know.

* * *

**2018**

Ben wakes up with a memory in his arms. Soft and warm and beautiful.

Rey smiles in her sleep.

She’s a marvel.

“Hi,” she says, drowsily, when the smile turns into a grin. She’d been awake already, he thinks. Awake, and watching him.

The realization makes him feel… warm. Ben smiles.

“Good morning,” he replies. Rey nuzzles against his neck, spreads her hand out over his chest, and makes a contented noise.

“Do that again.”

“Hmm?”

“You sound growly in the morning,” Rey says. “I like it.”

“Good morning, Rey,” Ben growls, intentionally dipping his already rumbling voice a little lower. “Did you have good dreams?”

“Very good dreams,” she says, yawning. “You?”

“The best.”

His hands come around her body, smoothing down her back, cupping her ass. Rey makes a happy noise, and grinds subtly against his thigh.

“I missed you,” she says, almost in a whisper.

Ben stills, and with the temperance he never had as a nineteen-year-old, he sets aside his arousal.

“You left,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss into her hair. “Connie said you went home.”

“I had to,” Rey says, with a sigh. “Family stuff. Bullshit, really. Then my student visa was denied, and I… I wanted to get back in touch, but I didn’t know your last name, and time just…”

“Yeah,” he says. He understands that, how quickly time can fly by. “I missed you, too.”

Ben adjusts in the bed, and makes a little groan of annoyance. His body isn’t nineteen anymore, either. But it’s worth it, being sore in places after their athletic sexual adventures the night before. When he moves his hand around, between her legs, she’s wet and slick and warm for him.

He holds her gaze, and parts her folds with two thick fingers.

And Rey’s mouth goes slack and soft. Her eyes never leaving his.

“No more leaving,” he says softly. “You stay right here, in my bed, until—”

“Yes,“ she gasps, bucking into his touch, letting the fingers circle around her bud with steady precision; he’s a very quick study, and she’s become his favorite subject. “Yes, alright, yes.”

Ben Solo feels her come apart for him, softly, like the tide coming in over warm sand. Then she grins, and pulls him over top of her. No scratchy couch, no sour stomach, no regrets, no interruptions. Just Rey, tan skin and freckles, quiet sounds, shared between their searching mouths. Soft sheets, firm touches. Slick and wet.

And he smiles, too, and lets her guide him inside.


End file.
